


The Shield

by gogollescent



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 03:24:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12472380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gogollescent/pseuds/gogollescent
Summary: Professor Lupin seemed like he might go either way on evil diaries, but fainting on the train was clearly a blot of shame he understood, and would do anything to help paper over.





	The Shield

Professor Lupin didn’t like her much. Or he liked her, but no better than he liked any Gryffindor. She had gotten used to special treatment in small doses, from professors who thought there was no point in pretending she hadn’t been tricked by You-Know-Who. Some were kind, some were worriedly strict, and some seemed to assume she had doubled in height, squinting with bleary eyes at the air above her head. And they talked to each other; Professor Lupin was great friends with the older teachers. She didn’t need all the attention, but she knew that if someone like Professor Lupin didn’t give it, it was because he thought she should go ahead and forget. 

She couldn’t decide if he was right about that. At least, she wanted to, but what if she wasn’t supposed to? She had already forgotten writing on the walls, strangling the chickens, hurting the cat. All she had left was the times she had woken up, in her own bed, heart beating as though she had run up the stairs, her blood still sprinting.

On the other hand, his scrupulous casualness might all have been because she had almost fainted in his car. Professor Lupin seemed like he might go either way on evil diaries, but fainting on the train was clearly a blot of shame he understood, and would do anything to help paper over.

The second years didn’t study boggarts, so she didn’t find out if hers would have been a book or a snake or a Dementor, like Harry’s. They learned territories to avoid, field treatments for poisoned wounds, and did exercises on how to use charms they already knew to improvise a whole defense. Dark creatures are called that for a reason, so Lumos is the novice wizard’s shield. But sometimes Lumos won’t penetrate far, so… what can we think of to amplify the spell? Would it make sense to carry a mirror?

Ginny didn’t understand. It seemed the wrong way around: surely you started with one foolproof method to ward off attack, for people too stupid or too young to figure out how to live a safer life, and then, once they had mastered that difficult, terrible spell, you could teach them about risk. Start with the moment of death, then work backward, so everyone could be saved. But she had a feeling if she tried to say that in class, it would have come out scrambled. It was, she realized, the sort of thing she would have liked to have written to Tom—not at the time, at the time she had been happy to pour out her heart without trying to sound clever; it was a book, it was her friend, and she hadn’t thought it could be unsympathetic. But after. She remembered his voice, from the Chamber, even though she had been disappearing. “It’s very boring—the silly troubles—” So she wished she had had ideas to put down, and cold little bits about the people around her, and Tom would have thought, here is a person I understand, though stupider and weaker than I was at that age. But she didn’t, of course, for as long as she stared at Professor Lupin she could only think how tired he looked, and how her mum would have wanted to feed him.

And that was better. Most days she liked feeling brave, knowing that none of it meant much, but trying anyway to read the flickers, like dark spots in a crystal ball. She could rehome spiders, talk sharply to homesick first-years, and hang upside down from her broom to get the homemade quaffle, although not if Harry was there, and Harry’s friends presented other problems. Hermione talked to her so much now that around her Ginny felt less real, less solid. She didn’t mind going to jelly while Hermione lectured, but she had a hard time keeping separate the person who cried and flared up, and the person who had to keep flying, while Hermione sat and read under a tree. But what could she say? Sometimes Hermione raised her head and grimaced encouragingly, hair in her eyes.

One evening, after a game on the grounds, they headed back to the castle together, and came across Professor Lupin by the lake. He was lying on his back, head pillowed on his flipped-up robe, and with his eyes shut he looked almost dead, although it was hard to believe he was asleep. Just pale, waxy, his wrinkles bunched up; he seemed older than he was in the classroom, moving, talking. Hermione had stopped, but gave a start when Ginny stopped; she held a finger to her lips, but tentatively, like she didn’t know if she was allowed to insist.

Professor Lupin opened his eyes and smiled. Not dead at all, thought Ginny clearly; petrified. Gray eyes, gray hair, and the rest of him was made of different sorts of stone. He said, “Ah. I’ve scared off all but the bravest of picnickers. Or—let’s see, are you flying somewhere?”

Ginny ducked her head and tried to hold the borrowed broom further behind herself. Hermione said, with mysterious confidence, “She wants to be _the Chaser_ someday,” and then she and Lupin went through a few rounds of pleasantly fruitless clarification, while Ginny wondered how to ask if he needed help standing up.

He rolled to his feet, in the end, like one of her brothers. He stretched and yawned. His awful pink cardigan had a few black hairs attached. Surprised, Ginny wondered if he had somehow made a friend of Mrs. Norris. He dusted himself off, patting briskly at the grass on his pants and robe, but the hairs stayed put.

“Do you need to see Madame Pomfrey?” said Hermione, without any change of tone. Since this was exactly what Ginny had wanted to ask, she couldn’t explain the resentment that bubbled up when Hermione managed to say it—except, she discovered, she hadn’t asked for a reason. It wasn’t just that he was a professor and she was timid. There was some other question that she hadn’t found out about. She wanted to order him to stand still.

“Hmm. Thank you, Hermione. No, I’m feeling a bit under the weather, but truth be told, I think it was something I ate.” He was still brushing at his cardigan, in lazy strokes that only seemed urgent because he hadn’t stopped. Then he paused and held one hand to his chin and gave a great, comical shrug— _what’s to be done?—_ and walked away. It was like something Flitwick or Trelawney would have done. There goes a liar, Ginny said to herself, and her heart thumped in her cheek but she felt calm, and she would have said something to Hermione, but Hermione had taken a step toward the lake. Ginny looked too; it was almost like flying; there you were, on the lip of a cup that held Hogwarts, the willows, and the moon.


End file.
